Yes, Matilda you can live on a shoestring budget . . .

I can see the raised eyebrows now but they will have two ways to go when you have read all of this – they can be raised higher or lower – totally your option. I have no problem admitting that I am well past my time, was born at least a generation if not three generations too late. Shocker for many, I am sure. I am frugal, was born that way and from the way things are looking, will certainly die that way. I can literally open a roll of paper towels and two or three months later, still have paper towels on that same roll of paper towels. Strange, I don’t think so. I use a paper towel, put it across a screen and let it dry, use it again, and again sometimes. It is not a rocket science. I compact trash – that is huge with me. I cringe and I am pretty sure miss a heartbeat or two, or maybe have a 20-point increase in blood pressure when I see a trash bag (yes even at the TIMES office) running over, giving new meaning to my cup runneth over, and pull it out of the trash can and it’s hardly a quarter full. Trivial – maybe so but it still drives me nuts.

I manage to multi-use just about everything I come into contact with simply because that is my nature. It’s almost like it’s a game with me to see how much trash I can compact so much so that in days long passed, I entertained my breakfast crew with a prescription bottle one day. I filled it so full, I even surprised myself. I showed it to them and then emptied all of the contents out. It was with 100% certainty that I would never be able to return the contents to the same bottle by all of the crew who were present. Well, not only did I return everything to the same bottle, I added an extra wrapper from something someone in the crew had opened. They never doubted my stubbornness to not back down to a challenge that involved saving. And that’s what I truly think of it as – savings!

I purchase very few items that are not on sale. I know the likes and favorites of everyone close to me. If I see something on sale, I am going to buy it if someone in my family or that I am friends with uses it. That sometimes drives them nuts, but it has also come back to haunt them with this pandemic causing shortages. Rest assured, I won’t be caught short.  The week of Hurricane Michael, a friend of mine had gone to ‘stock up’ and he put an 18 pack of toilet tissue on my porch. That went into my ‘surplus’ and when the pandemic hit and everyone went BONKERS over toilet paper which still hasn’t been explained, NO WORRIES at my house. Paper doesn’t spoil folks – use those coupons, stock up for a rainy day.

I wish I had a nickel for every time my brother or M have told me “Mom, don’t buy another ham or Boston butt, you have a dozen in the freezer!” Well, I don’t usually have a dozen, however if they were on a good enough sale, I just might. When there is a death in someone’s family, unexpected company in from out of town at someone’s house, or any number of other occasions, open one of my freezer doors and boom – you have a choice of what to cook. When I worked at River Junction Correctional Institution in the mid-80s, Carl Peterson was the food service supervisor (of course that title wouldn’t work today because it doesn’t have executive in it, but it worked just fine then). When I went to work there, Carl was one of the ones who gave me a tour of the institution. It was a Friday(everyone starts to work for the state on a Friday) and when we got to the kitchen, he picked up a piece of fish that had just been taken out of the fryer. He threw it in the trash, and said pull something else, take this fish and trash it. He then looked at me and said, “No matter what’s said about prison food, but we don’t serve bad food. We may serve food that taste bad but it’s not bad food.”

With that said, I’ve almost swallowed my tongue on way more than a dozen occasions when I hear people say they can’t make ends meet and they were making several times more than what I was making, and I’m thinking, “Duh, yes you can’t eat at a Mercedes-catered to restaurant when you drive a Studabaker (that brought some raised eyebrows) and you’re on a Wendy’s 99-cent menu budget.”

Here’s another old tale from the distant past. When we were living in Houston, we had an unexpected guest one night and it got to be dinner time, so they were invited to join us. I said something to the effect that we weren’t expecting company but there was plenty for everyone. He came back with, “Anything is better than what we’re having at home.” I asked him what they were having and he said live, and added, “I can’t stand liver.”  Well, that was NOT what I wanted to hear since I had a huge pot of smothered fried beef liver that I was placing on the table at that very moment. I didn’t open my mouth, sat the bowl of liver down and just added the sides, started serving everyone and then sat down. The guest took a bite and said how tender the ‘steak’ was. Once the meal was over, I cleared the table, did the dishes and walked back to the living room. He and his son both complimented the meal and I just couldn’t resist saying, “Oh, yes liver is one of our favorites around here, whether it’s smothered fried or liver and onions.” Jaws dropped and the son said something to his dad about I thought you said we don’t eat liver! 

Parents can have way more influence than they give themselves credit for having. Once again, I am blessed with M being a great eater. He doesn’t eat olives of any kind, but other than that, I don’t know of a food he won’t eat and especially if he’s a guest somewhere. So, now that you know I can live and have and will continue to do so on a shoestring budget, I’ve set you up for next week’s rant about how to balance governmental budgets. So get ready constitutionals, administrators, and commissioners, you can’t say you were not warned! After all, budget season is just around the corner and Prissie will help get you through budget with money to spare!